Emergency Medical Services

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Summary

If you get very sick or badly hurt and need help right away, you should use emergency medical services. These services use specially trained people and specially equipped facilities.

You may need care in the hospital emergency room (ER). Doctors and nurses there treat emergencies, such as heart attacks and injuries. For some emergencies, you need help where you are. Emergency medical technicians, or EMTs, do specific rescue jobs. They answer emergency calls and give basic medical care. Some EMTs are paramedics - they have training to do medical procedures on site. They usually take you to the ER for more care.

If you or someone you know needs emergency care, go to your hospital's emergency room. If you think the problem is life-threatening, call 911.

Related Issues

• Rural Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and Trauma (Rural Health Information Hub)

Clinical Trials

• ClinicalTrials.gov: Emergency Medical Services (National Institutes of Health)

Journal Articles References and abstracts from MEDLINE/PubMed (National Library of Medicine)

• Article: "Get Connected": Integrating Telehealth Triage in a Prelicensure Clinical Simulation.
• Article: COVID-19 Emergency Management Structure and Protocols.
• Article: Making ordinary decisions in extraordinary times.
• Emergency Medical Services -- see more articles

Find an Expert

• American College of Emergency Physicians
• American Red Cross Also in Spanish

Children

• Going to the Emergency Room (Nemours Foundation)
• Teaching Your Child How to Use 911 (Nemours Foundation) Also in Spanish
• What You Need to Know in an Emergency (For Parents) (Nemours Foundation) Also in Spanish
• When It's Just You in an Emergency (Nemours Foundation) Also in Spanish

Patient Handouts

• When to use the emergency room - adult (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish
• When to use the emergency room - child (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish